We’re back in good old St Mary Mead, where Miss Marple seems to have aged considerably since the last time we met her. She writes some pacey conversation scenes – those between the Misses Marple and Knight, Miss Marple and Dr Haydock, Miss Marple and Dolly Bantry, for example, come to mind, plus – if you already know whodunit (as I sadly did – I find the 1980 film adaptation really sticks in the mind) – you can see how adeptly she deliberately leads the innocent reader up the garden path, with a wilful narrative deceit that’s a complete joy to identify! You can sense Christie reaching conclusions as she writes the book, uncertain as to how the old and the new will live together until she actually explores it in the narrative. You can also see it in people like Cherry, who has moved into the Development but doesn’t like the new types of people, preferring the gentility of the traditional village residents. The clash of traditional and modern is evidenced not only in Miss Marple’s day-to-day life, but also with the old ladies of the village being confronted by modern day America, by having a film studio on their doorstep.

This is a thoroughly entertaining read, where the old and the new collide, and sparks fly as a result. The title is a quotation from Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott, which is quoted as an epigraph. Otherwise, the full book was first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club on 12th November 1962, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in September 1963, also with the shortened title The Mirror Crack’d.

This was Christie’s first book not to have been serialised in advance of its full publication in either the US or the UK, although an abridged version was serialised in two parts in the Toronto Star Weekly Novel in March 1963, with the shortened title The Mirror Crack’d. By 1962, she had already appeared as Miss Marple in the film Murder She Said, with three more Marple adaptations to follow in the next couple of years. Margaret Rutherford was a seasoned actress, known for many great dramatic and comic film appearances following her first big hit as Madame Arcati in the film of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit in 1945.

The book is dedicated “to Margaret Rutherford in admiration”. As usual, if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, as always, I promise not to reveal whodunit! In which garrulous busybody Heather Badcock corners movie star Marina Gregg at a reception party, boring her to tears and the next minute, she’s dead! But did the murderer intend the harmless Heather as the victim, or the wealthy and influential Marina? Fortunately for Miss Marple the murder takes place at Gossington Hall in St Mary Mead, and her friend Chief Inspector Craddock is brought in from Scotland Yard to investigate the crime so Miss Marple has all the necessary access to the facts to crack the case.

The Mirror Cracked by Nadie Lake